Alys Clare: The Joys of My Life

Alarmed by his tone, Gus, who had been standing on guard across the ditch, spun round. ‘Sir Josse? Are you all right?’

‘Aye, my lad, aye, or at least I will be when we get away from this frightful place. Come over — it’s time for you to repeat your entrance procedure in reverse.’

Gus hurried across the plank and, as soon as Josse was safely over on the far side, drew it back inside the fortress. Then he slammed the door, and Josse heard the bolts shoot home. He waited impatiently for Gus to climb the spiral staircase and the ladder and then, when Gus appeared on the battlements, called up to him, ‘Is there a way you can climb down and bring the rope away with you?’ It would be a mistake, he realized, to leave evidence that someone had been inside.

‘Yes, I reckon so,’ Gus called back. ‘It’s good and long, so I’ll tie one end round my waist — ’ he did so — ‘and loop the rope round the stone bastion, then lower myself down using the free end.’

It sounded highly dangerous. ‘But you-’ Josse began.

‘Don’t worry. Just watch, I’ll be all right!’

In no time Gus was bouncing down the wall, fending himself away with his feet and feeding the rope hand over hand. He reached the bottom — Josse let out the breath he had been holding — and jerked the rope free of its support, catching it as it fell into his waiting arms. He looped it over his shoulder, then scrambled down into the ditch and up the other side.

Wordlessly Josse put his arms round the young man in a hard hug. ‘Well done,’ he muttered. Then, releasing him, added, ‘Now, let’s pray our luck holds while we make our escape.’

It did. Whatever Philippe de Loup was doing that May afternoon, he was doing it well away from the Ile d’Oleron. Josse and Gus kicked their horses to a canter. Then, as if the animals were as affected as their riders by the brooding, lowering atmosphere of World’s End, both broke into a furious gallop.

As the desolate north-west corner of the island was left behind, the mist cleared and the sun came out.

Although it was late in the afternoon by the time Josse and Gus were back in the vicinity of Eleanor’s castle at the other end of the island, Josse was gripped by the desire to get away to the mainland. Despite the sunshine that had streamed down on them once they were out from that eerie, malevolent mist, he had gone on feeling cold and shivery. It was as if some malign influence that hung around Philippe de Loup’s fortress had adhered to him like a deadly cloak, for there had been evil in that dreadful place: Josse had almost been able to taste it.

He made up his mind. ‘We’re not staying in the queen’s castle tonight,’ he announced to Gus. The relief that flooded Gus’s face suggested he had been fighting the same sense of horror as Josse. ‘There’s no point,’ he went on, ‘since our business here is done.’

‘Right, Sir Josse,’ Gus said. Then, tentatively, ‘D’you mean us to leave the island right now, then?’

‘Aye.’ Josse heard Gus mutter a fervent ‘Thank God’, which exactly echoed his own sentiments. Thinking that it was only fair to give the lad some sort of explanation, he said, ‘I needed to look inside that place up at World’s End, Gussie, and thanks to your ingenuity and your nimble hands and strong feet, we’ve managed to do so.’ He glanced at his companion. The lad must be aching to ask why they’d had to break into de Loup’s stronghold and what Josse had been looking for, but he was a lay brother, trained in the habit of obedience, and he didn’t.

They rode on in silence for a while. Josse was thinking hard and eventually he came to the conclusion that if Gus were to share the perils of this mission, as indeed he already had, then it really was only fair to tell him just why he was being asked to risk his life. I need not tell him the whole story, Josse thought; the outline should suffice.

‘Gussie,’ he began, ‘the queen has given me a job to do and it looks as if it’s going to be dangerous.’

‘I’ll help you, Sir Josse,’ the lad said gallantly. ‘The lady abbess didn’t want you going into peril by yourself and she said I was to watch out for you,’ he added with a touching note of pride.

‘And there’s nobody I’d rather have,’ Josse said sincerely. ‘But the peril is real, lad.’

‘I know, sir,’ Gus said, his voice hushed. ‘I saw inside that fort place.’ He hesitated. ‘Wh-what d’you think they get up to there?’

‘I do not know for certain,’ Josse said gravely. ‘Rumour has it that they practise devil worship and-’ No. There was surely no need to tell this innocent young man the rest. ‘And other things,’ he finished lamely.

‘There was a smell like the slaughter house,’ Gus said slowly. ‘A smell of blood and of… Well, terrified animals… er… well, they shit themselves, and there was that smell as well. Wasn’t there?’ The use of the coarse word had made him blush.

‘Aye, Gussie, I noticed it too.’ He thought again of the stains on the silver-grey robe.

‘D’you reckon they sacrifice animals up there in that room, Sir Josse? Is that it?’

Well, humans were animals, of a sort.

‘Aye, Gussie,’ Josse said. ‘I reckon they do.’

‘Oh!’ Gus looked aghast. Then he seemed to pull himself together. ‘Is that the mission, then, sir? To find out what the men do up there in the fort and tell the queen so that she can stop it?’

‘That’s a part of it,’ Josse acknowledged, ‘but there’s more, although I’m afraid I can’t tell you the rest.’

Gus appeared to be ahead of him: ‘There’ll be grand and famous names involved, I’ll bet,’ he said perceptively. ‘Some great lord or knight, I’ll warrant, and the queen’s worried because rich and powerful men ought not to behave like that, and she’ll want to-’

‘Aye, lad,’ Josse said, interrupting hurriedly. Good Lord, if the lad were allowed to go on with that train of thought, before long he would have guessed the whole sordid, terrible tale. ‘So our task is to find out who is involved and discover all that we can about them. They’re not at the tower, we know that, and I very much doubt if they’re lodging anywhere near Queen Eleanor’s castle. I think the best thing we can do is return to the mainland and try to pick up the trail.’

‘Do we have any names, sir?’ Gus asked. ‘We’ll have our work cut out if not.’

Josse grinned. ‘Aye. We have the name of the man who owns that fortress. He’s called Philippe de Loup.’

Gus’s eyes widened in astonishment. ‘I’ve heard that name! Not exactly like you just said it, but the “Loup” bit.’

‘In what context?’ Josse demanded.

‘Saul and I were going to our quarters the first night we were here and there was a band of children playing tag out in the yard behind the kitchens. It was quite late and this big fat woman came out looking for them because it was their bedtime. Anyway, two of them were being really naughty and wouldn’t come even when she kept on calling, and she said, “If you’re not in by the time it’s dark, the Loup will get you,” and then they came scurrying in quick as you like.’ He shook his head. ‘I reckoned she was referring to some sort of local bogeyman. I never imagined he was real.’

‘Perhaps he’s both,’ Josse said slowly. ‘If fearsome rumours have built up about that tower out there on the point, then its master would indeed have become a figure with which to threaten naughty children.’ Perhaps too, he added silently, for one or two local boys it became more than just a threat. That thought, though, was dreadful and he tried to put it out of his mind.